Harper announces plan to place limits on release of mentally ill criminals

Kelly Sinoski and Peter O'Neil, Vancouver Sun02.09.2013

Darcie Clark's cousin Stacy Galt, right, sits with Prime Minister Stephen Harper after he announced the Conservative government is providing courts with new powers to lock up people found not criminally responsible for their crimes due to mental problems, in Burnaby, B.C., on Friday, February 8, 2013. Darcie Clark's children Kaitlynne, Max, Cordon were killed by her ex-husband Allan Schoenborn in 2008 in Merritt.Darryl Dyck
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

Darcie Clark's cousin Stacy Galt, left, sits with Prime Minister Stephen Harper during a photo opportunity before he announced the Conservative government is providing courts with new powers to lock up people found not criminally responsible for their crimes due to mental problems, in Burnaby, B.C., on Friday, February 8, 2013. Darcie Clark's children Max, Cordon and Kaitlynne were killed by her ex-husband Allan Schoenborn in Merritt, B.C. in 2008.Darryl Dyck
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

Prime Minister Stephen Harper announces the Conservative government is providing courts with new powers to lock up people found not criminally responsible for their crimes due to mental problems, in Burnaby, B.C., on Friday, February 8, 2013.Darryl Dyck
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

Prime Minister Stephen Harper pauses while announcing the Conservative government is providing courts with new powers to lock up people found not criminally responsible for their crimes due to mental problems, in Burnaby, B.C., on Friday, February 8, 2013. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

Prime Minister Stephen Harper is in B.C. Friday to announce the tabling of legislation in the House of Commons to make it tougher for mentally ill criminals to be released from custody.FRED CHARTRAND
/ THE CANADIAN PRESS

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When Allan Schoenborn was granted escorted leaves from the Forensic Psychiatric Hospital near Colony Farm in April 2011, the public was outraged.

Schoenborn’s ex-wife Darcie Clarke, the mother of the couple’s three children whom Schoenborn had killed in Merritt in 2008, lived in nearby Port Coquitlam and was terrified for her life.

On Friday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper met Clarke in Burnaby before announcing new federal legislation that he said would give her and victims like her more rights.

The legislation would make it tougher for high-risk offenders with mental illness to get unescorted day passes or be released from custody.

“It pains me to say this, but Ms. Clark is not alone,” Harper said.

Although legislation cannot undo the “horrific situation” that occurred in the Schoenborn case, Harper said, it should help people like Clarke to “regain control of their lives.

“Their suffering has been aggravated; there’s a sense they’ve been abandoned by the legal system.”

In Clarke’s case, the community rallied against the B.C. Review Board’s 2011 decision that Schoenborn — who admitted to killing the children but was deemed not criminally responsible as a result of a mental disorder — was well enough to be allowed into the community under strict conditions and only when escorted. Victims’ groups called for reviews involving such offenders to be stretched from once a year to once every three years.

The legislation announced by Harper Friday would allow a judge to designate offenders found not criminally responsible for violent crimes because of a mental illness as high risk “if there is a substantial likeliness for further violence that would endanger the public.”

Such a designation would keep them in custody for up to three years before their case is reviewed.

At present, a review board examines such offenders every year and can choose one of three options: absolute discharge if the offender is deemed to no longer pose a significant threat to the community; a conditional discharge; or detention in custody in a hospital. There is also no obligation to warn the families of victims that the offenders are getting out.

“I really cannot believe we’re here right now and this is happening,” Clarke’s cousin Stacey Galt said Friday. “After that awful nightmare ... only a few years later things are changing for the better. The announcement is just a wonderful reminder to the courts and the provincial review board that victims matter.

“Darcie did nothing wrong but she has been held victim by outdated laws and yearly reviews (that) allowed a triple child murderer to be give fast freedom and a victim and a mother to have no say. I call on the House of Commons to unanimously pass this legislation. There’s a lot of people out there that need this help.”

The Harper government said late last year that it planned to toughen rules for the release of criminals found to be mentally ill at the time of their crime.

“Certain violent individuals have received unescorted day passes while still being a threat to public safety. We’ve heard from Canadians something is very wrong,” Harper said during the announcement in Burnaby with Justice Minister Rob Nicholson and Heritage Minister James Moore, B.C.’s senior cabinet representative and the government’s lead spokesman on the issue.

“We are giving the courts the power they need to keep those deemed too dangerous to release where they belong: in custody. Those with high-risk mental disorders will be detained in custody and prohibited from being released by any review board.”

Harper said the justice system over the past decades has become “unbalanced” and once a person is convicted of a crime, the focus shouldn’t only be on them.

The announcement comes a week before the B.C. review board is to examine the case of Schoenborn, who in 2010 was found not criminally responsible for the murders.

Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu and two Tri-City mayors, who have been pushing for the changes, lauded the new legislation.

Port Coquitlam Mayor Greg Moore said it could potentially affect Schoenborn if the review board does not approve his release next week.

“What’s really wonderful is the federal government listened,” Moore said. “From the community’s perspective we have a lot of concern that people were leaving our facility on day passes with no explanation.

“The community can feel safe because people aren’t able to be released into the community and if they are we’re notified.”

Coquitlam Mayor Richard Stewart said he was surprised the federal government moved as quickly as it did.

“My biggest fear was that someone like Allan Schoenborn could be let out before we got these changes in place,” Stewart said.

James Moore acknowledged that someone committing a horrific act due to mental illness could later be found to be no longer a danger to the public. “Well, at that moment, community safety and the victim have to be engaged in the process,” he said.

Not everyone applauded the new legislation. Schizophrenia Society of Canada chief executive Chris Summerville said it does little to combat prejudice and stigma toward people with mental illness.

Noting three per cent of people with a mental illness come in conflict with the law, Summerville said 0.001 per cent are found not criminally responsible. Furthermore, 93 to 97 per cent of them find treatment that works and do not reoffend.

“The announcement today was fear-based. It wasn’t evidence based,” Summerville said. “High risk must not be defined or determined by the severity or atrociousness of the crime, but by how well the person responds or does not respond to treatment.”

When the government announced it would introduce legislation on this subject last fall, Ian Hunter, emeritus professor of law at the University of Western Ontario, argued review boards are well equipped to call evidence and cross-examine witnesses. In a National Post article, he wrote that victims are notified in advance of annual reviews and are already invited to attend or submit a victim impact statement for consideration by the panel.

Moving to a three-year review process, he added, would “induce stasis into the forensic system” which is “already strained to the breaking point by inadequate forensic beds.” It would result in “even more mentally ill people languishing untreated in jails,” he said.

Harper announces plan to place limits on release of mentally ill criminals

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